Editing Mohammad Daoud Khan (section)

==Public image==
News sources in the 1970s claimed that General Daoud Khan said he was happiest when he could "light his American cigarettes with Soviet matches."<ref>[https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:54550ee8-e24b-4274-83d8-e9643c1f1aba/download_file?safe_filename=Reagan%2BDoctrine%2BWars%2B-%2BFinal%2BSubmision.pdf&file_format=application%2Fpdf&type_of_work=Thesis The Origins of the “Reagan Doctrine Wars” in Angola, Central America, and Afghanistan] PhD Thesis. Oxford University</ref><ref name="auto2"/>

Mohammad Daoud Khan was retrospectively described as an "old-fashioned statesman, compassionate yet reserved and authoritarian" by ''[[The Guardian]]'''s Nushin Arbabzadeh.<ref name="auto4"/> Then-President [[Hamid Karzai]] hailed Khan's courage and patriotism in comments after his 2009 state funeral, saying he was "always thinking of the advancement and prosperity of the country."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/world/asia/18afghan.html|title=State Funeral for Afghan Leader Slain in '78 Coup|first1=Abdul Waheed|last1=Wafa|first2=Carlotta|last2=Gall|newspaper=The New York Times|date=17 March 2009}}</ref> Some Afghans fondly consider him to be the best leader their country has had in modern times.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rferl.org/a/First_Afghan_Presidents_Remains_Reinterred_In_Kabul/1511702.html|title=First Afghan President's Remains Reinterred In Kabul|access-date=7 December 2017|publisher=Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty|date=17 March 2009|url-status=bot: unknown|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171207141612/https://www.rferl.org/a/First_Afghan_Presidents_Remains_Reinterred_In_Kabul/1511702.html|archive-date=7 December 2017}}</ref>
	
During his time as prime minister and president, Khan was highly unpopular among the non-Pashtun minorities in Afghanistan because of his alleged Pashtun favouritism.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://theglobepost.com/2018/11/07/afghanistan-daoud-ghani/|title=Daoud's Footprints: how Afghanistan's First President Influences Ghani|date=7 November 2018|accessdate=1 March 2019|work=The Globe Post|last=Saeedi|first=Sayed Ziafatullah}}</ref> During his regime, all significant positions in the government, army and educational institutions were held by [[Pashtuns]]. His attempt at the [[Pashtunization|Pashtunisation]] of Afghanistan reached such an extent that the word 'Afghan' started being used to refer only to Pashtuns and not to the other minority groups who collectively formed a majority in Afghanistan.<ref>{{cite book|last=Walter|first=Ben|title=Gendering Human Security in Afghanistan: In a Time of Western Intervention|page=75|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qv8nDwAAQBAJ|date=2017|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9781317265207}}</ref>

The [[Afghan Armed Forces]] were allied with Daoud Khan and supported his goal of promoting [[Pashtuns]] to higher posts in the [[Afghan National Army|Afghan Armed Forces]]. In 1963, Afghan [[Uzbeks]] were barred from becoming high-ranking officers in the Afghan armed forces. Similarly only a few [[Tajiks]] were allowed to hold the position of officer in the Afghan army, while other ethnicities were excluded from those positions.

Daoud Khan viewed the Afghan armed forces as a crucial vector in the Pashtunisation of Afghan state.<ref>{{cite book|last=Sharma|first=Raghav|title=Nation, Ethnicity and the conflict in Afghanistan: Political Islam and rise of Ethno-politics 1992–1996|year=2016|publisher=Routledge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JI6uDAAAQBAJ|isbn=9781317090137}}</ref> The [[Panjshir Province|Panjshir]] uprising in 1975 is also believed to be result of anti-Pashtun frustration which had been building up in Panjshir valley as result of Daoud Khan's policies.<ref name="atpc">{{cite book|last=Arnold|first=Anthony|title=Afghanistan's two party communism: Parcham and Khalq|year=1983|publisher=Hoover Press|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cd85ioPsz6cC|page=39|isbn=9780817977931}}</ref>